Gone Girl Psychology

*The following is based on the movie, Gone Girl. Although the movie ends with Amy murdering her ex-boyfriend, this paper excludes this detail in order for Amy to have a more typical counseling experience. Instead, she is put on probation for two years for assault and framing her own disappearance.
Introduction, background information, and biopsychosocial history Amy Elliot Dunne is a 35 year old Caucasian female that has entered counseling after being mandated by the court for charges of assault and framing her husband for her own disappearance. Amy was born and raised in New York City and is the only child of her mother, Marybeth, and father, Rand. As a child, Amy says she was flawed and “not good enough” due to a high standard her
parents set for her. Her parents are authors and wrote a series based on their daughter, titled Amazing Amy. Amy did well in her private school and had many accomplishments, but she claims she fell short to the accomplishments of the character in the book. She says she was always striving for more in order to keep up with the expectations of her parents and the readers of Amazing Amy. Since books were always around her as a child, she learned to read early and stayed busy learning other languages and poetry. Amy describes her elementary and high school years as ones that were difficult for her because it was hard to keep friends, as other girls would get jealous of the attention she was receiving from the boys. When asked if she wanted friendship, Amy replied, “Well of course” with a flat expression on her face and no tone in her voice. Amy’s father said Amy typically chose solitary activities even though classmates from school would attempt to befriend her. He goes on to say the few friends she did have usually ended in chaos. He describes a friendship Amy had with another girl in high school, in which the friend began to tell other classmates about how often Amy would lie to her. In frustration, Amy purposely fell down the stairs as she was with this friend to make it seem as if this friend had pushed her. –Say how amy lied? Amy says she had many admirers from men in high school and that she had one serious boyfriend that ended badly.
She says after she broke up with him he stalked her, sexually assaulted her, and attempted suicide once he realized their relationship was over. Marybeth, Amy’s mom, refutes this story and says Amy injured herself to make it seem as if she was sexually assaulted in order to punish the ex-boyfriend for breaking up with her. When confronted about this story, Amy looks away and shows a slight smile. She goes on to say, “He took my pride away”. She justifies this action because she did not want to go to school knowing that others would see her as the one that was “dumped”. Rather, she wanted others to see him as the one who did something wrong. Amy went to a private college after high school and majored in journalism and poetry, then furthered her education and got a Master’s degree in psychology. Although she did not necessarily want a career in psychology, she wanted to prove to her parents and the readers of Amazing Amy that she could be just as successful as the character in the book. She received a well-paying job as a personality quiz writer and enjoyed the work as she could write from the comfort of her own
home. Amy says her husband, Nick, and her had a great relationship the first four years of their marriage, until a year ago when she noticed Nick was becoming more distant. They both had lost their jobs due to the recession and were having a lot of financial struggles. Amy’s face filled with rage as she described how she discovered that Nick had been cheating on her with another woman. She looked down at the ground sternly with wide eyes, “I needed to make him pay for taking my dignity”. Amy presented to counseling because she was mandated by court to do so for assaulting her ex-boyfriend from high school and framing her husband for her disappearance.
Her husband says that after she found out that he had another woman in his life and wanted a divorce, Amy set a meticulous plan to stage her disappearance and make others believe that her husband was responsible for her death. Amy stayed at her ex-boyfriend’s house while she was in hiding. The ex-boyfriend stated, “She made me believe she wanted to get back together with me and that her husband was abusing her. I felt bad so I let her stay with me for awhile, but I should have remembered the mind games she can play because she ended up beating me up.” When questioned about her reasoning for framing her disappearance on her husband, Amy explained that it saved her marriage. She said that love requires sacrifice, which is why she put her and her husband’s life at risk in order for them to be together. She went on to say that love is about control and hurting each other, which is her justification for putting her husband through the pain of being arrested for her disappearance. She appears joyful as she talks about their relationship once she returned back home. “He loves me. He just needed to be reminded”. Reports by Amy’s parents and her all agree that Amy has never experienced moods of being extremely happy or extremely sad, but collaterals report she often has outbursts of anger when she feels she is
mistreated. Four weeks after Amy returns home and is put on probabtion for two years, Amy finishes the diagnostic interview by politely and calmly stating, “See, I’m not crazy. I’ve just been through a lot and would like to go home to my husband in peace.”